Was it Sir Winston Churchill who said that democracy is the worst possible government system, barring all others? We Italians, who elected Silvio Berlusconi to power, think the same of him.
We also know that Silvio never had anything to do with justice until when in 1994 he entered politics and defeated the "joyous war machine" of Mr Ochetto, then leader (under changed name and false pretences) of the old Italian communist party. Since then he has been accused (in more than 1000 instances) of practically every possible wrongdoing barring, so far but it will shortly and probably happen, pedo and or necrophilia, and has always been acquitted. How do you call this, in your own country, harassement? Legal harassement ?
Unfortunately we Italians don't have a Profumo or a Gordon Brown to rely upon, we are republicans and there is no young prince Charles to protect us from our politicians wrongdoers, we have Silvio Berlusconi, we think he is doing, giving the circumstances, not so bad a job, and should worst come to worst, we are prepared to go back to the pools and elect him again. As Sir Winston said: worst of systems, barring all others. Best, Sestorino

Italians care about who governs them. Berlusconi and his "transgressions" (to borrow a word!) are tolerated because there is no viable opposition and until that changes, Berlusconi and his government are likely to remain.

Certainly there is a support for his centre-right government. In the North, where I live, the extreme right wing party, the Lega Nord, who is in government with Berlusconi, gets a lot of support. (Even the pedestrian crossings in some places are painted green which is the party colour) When the Swiss voted this weekend not to build any more mosques in their country, at least in most cantons, the Italian Interior Minister, Maroni (Lega), supported it, saying that governments needed to listen to its people. Thankfully, the Italian constitution provides for freedom of expression and a referendum Swiss-style would not be possible in Italy. But it is still frightening to hear the country's interior minister speak that way.

A massive campaign should be launched in this country to establish a viable opposition to the present government!

It would be great to think that Saturday's march in Rome was the beginning of such a campaign.

The article by The Economist fails to mention that the Italian Prime Minister has been accused with precision to have negotiated directly with the Graviano brothers, who have been referred to as "ricchissimi" or very, very rich and who moved to Milan from Sicily. Why does it matter ?
Forget about the tough prison conditions, a red herring, and follow the money, that is what judges Falcone and Borsellino did and why they were killed (just search on the internet the last video interview of Borsellino to a French TV days before he was killed in 1992 and notice the name of the budding TV entrepreneur mentioned....). The Economist correctly asked in 2001 to account for the initial EUR250m of the fortune of the TV impresario and that question was never answered...perhaps the meeting by the same TV impresario with Stefano Bontate in Milan in the 1970s would provide the answer, Mr Bontate of course was the head of Cosa Nostra, the powerful and "ricchissima" Sicilian mafia, notorious for having told Mr Andreotti, 7 times Italian PM, "you do as we say" just after having killed his right hand man in 1980. How long before the European Union starts taking these matters seriously and stop accepting the word of Italian politicians that would be in jail and not in power in any other European country, possibly with the exception of Belarus.

I live in a little village on the Adriatic Riviera too. The reason why Berlusconi is the PM is that he gives Italian people what they want. He doesn't fight against tax evasion. He doesn't fight against corruption. He is not a politiscian. He is a populist. The sad thing is that a lot people even if they believe that he committed a great deal of financial crimes and briberies keep on voting for him. They don't give a damm. Italian people don't care a fig, because all we care about is our little own world that ends just outside our courtyard.

In the last years judges arrested or charged politicians of both wings, that is the reason why now the parlameint is going to reform our tribunals and put the attornies under goverbment control. It is very sad.

Amerlok, have you never read the bible? Do you remember Jesus with Maddalena? God is the judge, not us. We are not fanatic islamist or calvinist, we are Catholic.
Have you never heard about " Italians do it better", for us is not a probleb to go with girls. One of our national eroe is GIACOMO CASANOVA.
I live in a beach town in Adriatic riviera, and I remember whene i was young, with friends we had an Aword for the best MANDRILLO, (playboy).
After II world war we had 1 Prime minister every year, Berlusconi was PM in the 1994, from 2001 to 2006 and from 2008 to now, the longest governement in post war period, maybe becose it's a very strong man and he knows ouw fight enemies and maybe this is why it'has so many enemy (including THE ECONOMIST).
Italy is not any more ungovernable, now we have BERLUSCONI.

Ps. The italian president is elected every 7 years, for PM as Berlusconi the Italian low is the reason we changed so many time, it's a post fascist low, the problem at that time was don't give a lot of power to a only man.

Repeated articles by the Economist regarding Berlusconi indicate that the former has an axe to grind.

It is difficult to imagine why. Berlusconi may be coming back or going away, but nothing much will change on the boot. That peninsula is almost ungovernable. After a post-war period of countless Social Democratic governments, Italy still cannot come up with a two- or three-party system that offers a semblance of competent government, as France has done.

Why does this intensely Catholic country not care a fig about Berlusconi's sexual escapades? Because, frankly, they don't give a damn who runs Italy -- the outcome is nearly always boringly the same.

(But, at last, it seems the Economist cares! Will wonders never cease ... ;^)